The US team opens tomorrow night against Vietnam... can the Americans three-peat?
USA vs Vietnam... analysis from AL Jazeera...
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2023/7/21/us-vs-vietnam-preview-womens-world-cup-2023
Fairly easy win against the defensive minded Vietnamese team...
Seemed sluggish in the first half against Netherlands... got some MOJO back in the second and managed a tie... gotta beat Portugal...
Maybe that piss poor first half by Team USA was the wake-up call they needed for the rest of the tournament and that the missed assignments and the lethargy that plagued them at the start is not going to cut it this year if they want any chance of threepeating.
Appears the skillset and the fitness of European players now are much closer to the standards the American women have established all these years. The match with Portugal going to be very interesting.
Uninspired effort last night.... barely escaped with a draw. Rapinhoe looked old and washed-up...
BBC analysis...
QuoteTwo-time Women's World Cup winner Carli Lloyd called it "uninspiring", "lacklustre" and "too predictable".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66372368
Plenty of opportunities to win this... :(
That was tough. As much as this team has been crapped on for their offensive performance, they defense that gave no good goal attempts to Portugal that could have been an embarrassing earlier exit performed even better limiting Sweden's looks after they were such a scoring machine the game they played before.
But what it came down to was that Team USA ultimately could not finish. They've added some great young talent and their future looks bright, but the non-cohesive and uninspiring way they played as a team against the Netherlands and Portugal shows that a good team can't just be the sum of its parts.
Proud of their performance, but many lessons must be learned from this.